Terry Pratchett's unpublished works crushed by steamroller

[Dave Rogers]

My favourite headline of the year so far; in accordance with the writer's wishes, a hard disc containing the works Terry Pratchett left unfinished was crushed by a steamroller at the Great Dorset Steam Fair.

Richard Henry, curator of Salisbury Museum, said: "The steamroller totally annihilated the stone blocks underneath but the hard drive survived better than expected so we put it in a stone crusher afterwards which I think probably finally did it in".

Good to see that his wishes were followed so faithfully.

Dave

 

[alfaniner]

My favourite headline of the year so far; in accordance with the writer's wishes, a hard disc containing the works Terry Pratchett left unfinished was crushed by a steamroller at the Great Dorset Steam Fair.



Good to see that his wishes were followed so faithfully.

Dave

Harlan Ellison is gonna be so pissed that someone stole his idea.

 

[MikeG]

The Dorset Steam Fair is an unbelievably wonderful event, with incredible machinery, odd people, and a general air of bonhomie, all bathed gently in the smell of oil. Crushing Pratchett's hard-drive would be par for the course there, and there would be a myriad vehicles which could have managed it beautifully. What a way to go!

 

[sphenisc]

Harlan Ellison is gonna be so pissed that someone stole his idea.

Not for the first time.

 

[GlennB]

"Pratchett steamroller 'should do Jeffrey Archer's hard drive next'"

(contains a mild swear word)

 

[theprestige]

"Pratchett steamroller 'should do Jeffrey Archer's hard drive next'"

(contains a mild swear word)

Too late to smash Eoin Colfer's hard drive, unfortunately.

 

[3point14]

"Pratchett steamroller 'should do Jeffrey Archer's hard drive next'"

(contains a mild swear word)

Genius faux Archer title there.

 

[TX50]

I bet his publishers backed it up first.

 

[GlennB]

Crushing is not secure. When I last dumped a desktop PC I drilled holes through the disk and then threw the disk unit in the sea.

Sauron might find it one day, and decode the remaining sectors ...

 

[Brainache]

I bet his publishers backed it up first.

I hope so.

I know it isn't what Terry Pratchett wanted, but I would love to read those unfinished books. I don't want to read versions finished by someone else, just the raw manuscripts. I think they might offer interesting insights into his creative process.

 

[cullennz]

I bet his publishers backed it up first.

Doubt it

Went straight to the bloke apparently

I hope they chuck a virtual tour of the exhibition on their site

 

[shemp]

Too bad they couldn't do this with Dan Brown's crap before it was published.

 

[Hellbound]

Too bad they couldn't do this with Dan Brown's crap before it was published.

Dan Brown's crap? But he only wrote one novel.

Admittedly, he published it several times, under different names, with details changed, but it's always the same plot line.

 

[Major Major]

The publishers must be mourning. The prospect of a "Terry Pratchett's Discworld" series written by dozens of anonymous hacks, funneling money into their pockets, are now even more remote.

The trend has been for some time to publish only what is a supermegabest-seller. This is because publishers who knew their field have retired or died off, to be replaced by an executive who did so well selling toothpaste or the latest hot toy.

 

[3point14]

The publishers must be mourning. The prospect of a "Terry Pratchett's Discworld" series written by dozens of anonymous hacks, funneling money into their pockets, are now even more remote.

The trend has been for some time to publish only what is a supermegabest-seller. This is because publishers who knew their field have retired or died off, to be replaced by an executive who did so well selling toothpaste or the latest hot toy.

Pterry never gave up the rights to his world and his characters in the same way that other authors have.

As far as I'm aware, it's all now owned by Mrs Pratchett and Rhianna Pratchett (A writer of no small success herself) Rhianna has pretty firmly said that she's not writing any and no-one else is either.